It’s also causing massive birth defects in the Iraqi population near where these weapons were used.
There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military’s new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick.
In the sprawling bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, he has many caretakers. An internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon and a dermatologist. He cannot function without his stupefying arsenal of medications, but they exact a high price.
“I’m just a zombie walking around,” he says.
Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life.
[…]
A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
Depleted uranium can enter the human body by inhalation, the most dangerous method; by ingesting contaminated food or eating with contaminated hands; by getting dust or debris in an open wound, or by being struck by shrapnel, which often is not removed because doing so would be more dangerous than leaving it.
Long a known factor, but ignored. Both in terms of impact on military, and, more so on the local civilians.
Who needs Chemical Ali when you have Chemical Rumsfield to replace him.
#1 These weapons have been in use long before Rumsfield took over. They used them during the Clinton Admin too. Get over yourself.
As the war drags on, more U.S soldiers are exposed to this. Rolling Stone Magazine did an excellent piece on this DU stuff. They pointed out that there were 100,000 vets classified by the Veterans Administration as disabled from the much shorter First Gulf War.
It’s a factor in why we are not now, nor will soon be, popular with the locals.
Yeah any good Democrat weapon is good for any Republican…
Shucks…
This shit IS a major cover up. The military is shooting itself on the foot with Depleted Uranium ammo. We had a small contingent of troops in Kosovo, where these ammunitions were used, and suddenly the guys come back with strange illnesses. Our military, keeps quiet and after a while nobody talks about it.
Of course that using Radiation, Biological or Chemical weapons will backfire.
It’s so hard fight wars with point and shoot weapons already, where you can actually see and point to where you want damage done. Imagine fighting with fuzzy indistinctive pervasive and hard to control weaponery. There’s no telling what will happen when these agents start being introduced in the foodchain, waterways, blown by winds, etc. there’s no telling where will they pop up.
That’s right, gc. DU munitions were officially introduced in combat during the rule of Bush the 1.
They are considered the cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Of course, since the Pentagon and our various “willing” governments still are working at avoiding responsibility for Agent Orange — collateral damage to both civilian and members of the military is ignored — by the klowns who caused the injuries and those who turn their backs on responsibility because they somehow think it’s required of their politics.
The point is that the U.S. Army is treated like test animals.
Ever hear of the Gulf Syndrome gquaglia?
This crap will stop as soon as enough people get angry. I don’t think it will happen any time soon.
There is no such thing as a safe dose of radiation.
#6, yes u are correct. Just wanted to make a point that the ammo is not some Republican boogy man, like the Rumsfeld comment seemed to imply.
RT — you couldn’t be more right. I worked in a non-ferrous metals research lab before most folks here were born. We had staff who received notice every 6 months or so — in the 1950’s — that the previously “safe” dose of radiation they’d accumulated on their film badges was no longer safe.
It’s just under a half-century since I worked there — and, yet, 2 years ago the Feds tracked me down for a health questionnaire just because of the “safe” levels of radiation in the building we used back then.
Incidentally, most of the metal in DU ammo is U-238. “Depleted” means it’s down to half it’s useful radioactivity. Normal half-life for U-238 is 4.5 billion years — so, the crap we’ve left to blow around the world will be causing damage for quite a spell.
#8, if that is true, then none of us should even be alive. All living creatures have been bombarded with low doses of radation from space and from the earth itself since life began on this planet. So your comment is incorrect.
There are two isotopes of uranium – U-235 (92 protons + 143 neutrons) and U-238 (92 protons + 146 protons) U-235 is the only naturally occuring fissile element and is used for atomic bombs and nuclear reactor fuel. U-238 is not fissile but can absorb neutrons and decay into Plutonium-239. “Enriched” uranium is uranium which has been purified to remove as much U-238 as possible, leaving U-235. “depleted” uranium, a by-product of the uranium enrichment process, is the opposite, the U-235 is removed, leaving U-238. The DU used by the military is 99.8% U-238, .2% U-235.
U-235 has a half-life of 7.038×10(8) years, U-235 has a half-life of 4.468×10(7). The longer the half-life, the lower the radioactivity, the higher the radioactivity, the shorter the half-life.
Depleted uranium is used in anti-armor and anti-tank shells, and tank armor, because it is extremely dense; at 19050 kg/m³, it is 70% denser than lead.
Half-Lifes of some of the most common by-products of nuclear fission:
Strontium-90 – 28.8 years
Caesium-134 – 2.0648 years
Caesium-137 30.23 years
Iodine-131 – 8.0197 days
The article states that DU [no relation to this blog] is:
It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium.
Which begs the question: “60% of what?”
60% of immediately fatal?
60% of exposure during a trans-Atlantic jet flight?
60% of the alarm setpoint of your home Radon detector?
We always thought it was funny, while I was in the Navy, that the inspection teams which flew around the world for Operational Reactor Safeguards Examination (ORSE) of nuclear-powered ships – were reminded to stop wearing their dosimeters on long flights, because that “non-occupational exposure” was adding-up in their health records, and looking bad on their “Man-REM Reduction Plan”…
Once it was determined that the dosimeters were picking up “cosmic rays” even in their luggage, they started “zeroing” the dosimeters as soon as the team came on-board ship.
Two years ago New Scientist did a story on DU. Alexandra Miller, a radiobiologist with the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, believes that its radiological and toxic effects might combine in subtle, unforeseen ways, making it more carcinogenic than thought.
#11 the line was a quote of Dr. Karl Z. Morgan. Radiation is cumulative. That’s why in the industry when you reach a certain exposure, you’re out. You never know what the future will bring. As far as natural radiation, you can be sitting down to dinner tonight and a cosmic ray could plow through a fragment of DNA, setting of a chain of events that may kill you a decade later from cancer. Mutations from natural radiation my have made leaps of evolution possible. The vast majority of the mutants however dies.
Getting back to the issue of soldiers health problems for a moment, I recall a story about “Gulf War Syndrome” (PBS show or some other documetry style show) that posed the idea that the illnesses may not be from the DU, but perhaps from the extreme and prolonged stresses of modern combat, and the effects that such long peroids of extreme stress had on the body.
Just a point to ponder
Jim W –
Yes, in the old days they called it “shell shock”.
Also, I seem to remember that previously, “Gulf War Syndrome” was blamed on a vaccine given to prevent Anthrax.
From my previous post –
For a cubic decimeter (10cm * 10 cm * 10 cm), that would be 19.1 kg, or 42 lbs. Wow.
A cube of iron the same size would be only 7.86 kg, so DU is 2.5 times as dense as iron. Picture having a weight set made out of DU. 🙂
Osmium, the densest natural element, is 22.61 kg/dm(3), or 49 lbs., only slightly heavier, but it’s very difficult to make, and it tends to form osmium tetroxide, which is extremely toxic, when exposed to air.
Holy smokes, you guys are easy to frighten.
The radiation emitted by DU is not the cause of it’s medical effects. Here’s a hint: something with a half life of 1 year emits radiation at twice the rate of something with a half life of 2 years. So where does that leave a metal with a half life of 4.5 billion years?
Answer: Not very radioactive.
The real medical problem with DU is that it’s heavy metal. That means it’s going to have biological effects similar to ingesting other heavy metals. Lead for example.
It is quite possible that DU is causing medical problems. It is extremely unlikely that the radiation emitted by DU is the source of those problems.
Most of the preceeding comments are way off the mark. It is very hard to inhale uranium dust because it is so heavy it does not remain airborne. If it is eaten, it is insoluble (U3O8) so it just goes thru the gut and is excreted in the feces. The radiation is very weak alpha radiation and some beta radiation from one of the daughters (Pa232). There is very little gamma radiation. Although there is some U-235 remaining in the DU, the contribution to the radiation from that nuclide is small as stated above. The primary contribution to bad health from DU is exposure to the kidneys when ingested uranium (some does enter the bloodstream) is excreted. Turns out that there is a bicarbonate complex that causes the U to stay in the nephrons of the kidney longer that we would like. If there is a lot of exposure by ingestion, or ingestion of a soluble form, the exposure to the kidneys by the weak alpha radiation can be the critical factor when added to the toxic quality of the heavy metal. In my experience (30 years) the exposure to DU is a non-problem. The VA is correct in looking for other sources for the symptoms.
There is a bunch of hucksters that make money of drumming up fear of DU. For good information about radiation, take a look at the radsafe listserver. Please see http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/.
U-235 is 15.8 times as radioactive as U-238.
Caesium-137 is 23.3 million times as radioactive as U-238.
Strontium-90 is 24.4 million times as radioactive as U-238.
Caesium-134 is 340 million times as radioactive as U-238.
Iodine-131 is 33.5 billion times as radioactive as U-238.
JA — maybe you found some Intelligent Design dodo to lead you around about the molecular weight of uranium; but, that doesn’t have much more than squat to do with the behavior of fine particulate matter when airborne.
Following your reasoning, we never had to be concerned about leaqded gasoline either. Though, come to think of it, the same crowd that doesn’t worry about DU — wouldn’t worry about that either.
I’ll give you one Google for free.
What on Earth does ID have to do with the substance of JA’s post, moss?
And I thought these DU weapons were considered illegal under international law. They should be.
Add another war crime onto this administration’s arrest warrant.
I thought they were going to be responsible. It seems that they lied about that too. Don’t they know that this stuff is so dangerous, or do they have so much DU from the reactors, that they have to use it somehow.
So now who’s using WMDs?
Arrest the administration, proscicute them, and let them serve time, just as anyone else would have to.
DU is not a “WMD”, Rocky. And its use is not prohibited by any treaty.
The link between DU and these soldiers’ illnesses is far from proven.
In addition to the USA, Russia, the UK and France also have DU for military use.
Do you know what the term “WMD” actually means, Rocky? Or are you going to misuse that term just like you misused the term “explosions” the other day?
Reed’s symptoms:
-Gums bleed
-Blood in urine
-Blood in stool.
-Extreme sensitivity to light
-Thyroid tumor (not clear if it was benign or malignant)
-Skin rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin.
-Migraines
From the original article, it is not clear what caused the herniated discs.
Mr. Reed is obviously quite ill, but none of his symptoms fit with those listed for acute radiation sickness, or uranium contamination.
Thyroid cancer can be caused by radioactive iodine, but that only occurs as a product of fission, and DU is not fissile.
Symptoms of Acute Radiation Sickness (source: CDC):
From WikiPedia article on Uranium:
Rootbeer Man,
Yeah, a WMD is a weapon of mass destruction. If you thing that DU isn’t destroying massive amounts of people there, or wherever it has been used you had better check your facts. Mutation may not be killing, but it sure comes close. Mutation can be destruction also, as it can include destruction of a gene, or part thereof.
I stand by what I said. DU is a WMD. Whether you and your people say so or not.
Sorry, it’s simply impossible for uranium, in the amounts involved, to cause the amount of damage that you claim it does. Byproducts of fission, such as the radioactive isotopes of strontium, cesium and iodine, yes. Uranium, no.
And you’re playing word games again. “Weapon of Mass Destruction” refers to nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons which when used can kill thousands instantly.